SS-GB (28 page)

As the Captain almost reached the third floor landing, a door opened suddenly, and a soldier emerged. He was a huge man, his face was flushed from drink and his soft hat askew. He was fastening his fly buttons and singing ‘Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden’. As he caught sight of Captain Hesse coming up the stairs, the soldier straightened, and began fumbling with the buttons of his tunic. Hesse tried to get past him. But the soldier put an arm out to bar his way, and leaned across to him. He had that condescension that comes naturally to men of such large stature, coupled to the jovial familiarity provided by the drink. ‘You look a good sort, Captain.’ He could see Hesse’s uniform tunic and the rank badges on his collar. The soldier steadied himself on the stair rail. ‘Going upstairs, are you?’ Hesse tried to get past him but could not. ‘That’s good. Officers’ girls on the top floor, eh? I wondered why they wouldn’t let us poor bloody Feldgrauen go up there.’

‘Please let me pass,’ said Hesse.

‘I was wounded at Dover, Captain,’ said the soldier proudly. ‘Came ashore with the first wave. See that!’ He patted the England Combat Shield on his left breast pocket. ‘You won’t see many of those about. Only the men of the first wave were awarded the one in gold. And there are not many of us left, Captain.’

‘Let me pass,’ said Hesse. His voice was more impatient now.

‘It’s no good threatening to call the bloody Feldgendarmerie,’ said the drunk, pronouncing the word with exaggerated care. He tapped Hesse’s chest. ‘Because we are all sinners here. Am I right, Captain, am I right?’

Hesse pushed the man gently and wriggled his way past him.

The soldier turned to watch him mount the next flight of stairs. He raised his voice. ‘All sinners here, Captain. Am I right, I say?’ Getting no answer he gripped the rail and began to pick his way carefully down the steep staircase. He belched loudly, and then suddenly bellowed his song very loudly. ‘Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden…’

Douglas cowered back into the shadows as the man came level with him. There was the soft plop of a time switch and the landing was plunged into complete darkness. The man’s song ended abruptly. ‘Not many of the first wave left, Captain,’ he said quietly and sadly, as he continued on his way, suddenly sobered by the memory of it.

Douglas hurried up the stairs in time to hear Captain Hesse ring a doorbell somewhere on the top floor. Two shorts and two long. The door buzzer sounded deep inside this grimy labyrinth. After a long pause, the well-oiled door bolts could be heard sliding open. The Captain was admitted without a word of greeting.
Douglas saw the shaft of yellow light reach out on to the landing and heard boots being wiped on a doormat. Then the door closed.

Douglas climbed the stairs, until his eyes were level with the floor of the top landing. The door through which Hesse had passed was old, and its blue paint was darkened and cracked with age. A brass number –4a– had been carelessly splashed by the ancient paint.

The last of the light switches plopped and the whole staircase was dark. Douglas went to the door and listened. He could hear music. Judy Garland sang ‘When you wish upon a star’ but it seemed to be coming from some other floor. Douglas put his hand to the bell-push and repeated the signal that Hesse had given. He had the feeling that he was being scrutinized by someone unseen.

The bolts slid back and when the door opened slowly, Douglas stepped back, not knowing what to expect. The light was behind the man who came to the door. He was wearing a German officer’s grey leather coat, and his right hand was in the pocket of it.

Douglas squinted into the light from the bare bulb that hung in the hall. ‘I want to talk to Captain Hesse,’ said Douglas. He said it quickly as a way of gaining time.

‘Superintendent Archer. You’d better come in.’ It was Colonel Mayhew. He bit his lip in a rare gesture of anxiety. ‘How the devil did you find this place?’

It was a squalid little flat: three rooms and a kitchen. The usual whorehouse configuration, three girls working, and some old woman who opened the door for the clients, cleaned up after them and made endless cups of tea, as well as providing an ever-present witness in case some mad fool took his flagellation too seriously.

At least that’s the way it had been until recently. Now the beds were dismantled and leaning against the walls, and the chipped enamel bidet was tucked away behind the filing cabinet. Box files were stacked upon the tiny sinks. Only the curtains remained of the original furnishings; whorehouses always have respectable curtains.

Captain Hesse was standing near the electric fire. He still wore his heavy overcoat with the fur collar, and his regulation gloves. He moved his head a fraction in order to see Douglas but he didn’t turn round to face him. Instead he shivered and drew nearer to the fire.

‘It’s all right, Hans,’ Mayhew told him. ‘This is one of my people.’ Hesse nodded as if that only postponed his fate.

‘What brought you here?’ said Mayhew, keeping his voice quite neutral in tone.

‘Captain Hesse did,’ said Douglas. ‘I followed him from his camp at Wittenham.’

‘He phoned me,’ said Mayhew. ‘I know all about it.’

‘And?’

‘Sooner or later you would have been told about this,’ said Mayhew.

The door to the next room opened. A man dressed in the uniform of a Feldgendarmerie Major said, ‘Hesse. Come in now.’

Hesse went rigid, clicked his heels and followed the Major, who closed the door behind them.

Left alone with Colonel Mayhew, Douglas went over to the fire and warmed his hands in a gesture that permitted Mayhew time enough to decide what to say. ‘These are all Abwehr people,’ said Mayhew finally. ‘We have been negotiating with them for a couple of months.’

‘Negotiating?’

‘They will help us liberate the King,’ said Mayhew. ‘The German army feel that their honour is impugned by the present situation. They have always felt that the King should be guarded by units of the German army, not by the SS.’

‘It seems trivial to me,’ said Douglas doubtfully.

‘Well it’s not trivial for
them,’
said Mayhew. ‘The high command in Berlin have secretly authorized the Abwehr to assist in the escape. They will stage the whole operation, providing we help to cover up afterwards.’

Douglas stared at Mayhew, trying to see inside this devious and complex man. ‘You’re not telling me the whole truth, Colonel,’ he said.

Mayhew pursed his lips, as though tasting an especially sour lemon. ‘The Germans have taken over the Bringle Sands Research Establishment in Devon. They are hoping to produce an atomic explosive. It was there that Dr Spode suffered radiation burns. Spode stole some of the most vital work, years and years of mathematical calculations.’

‘The papers that were burned at the Shepherd Market flat?’

‘Yes. His young brother John persuaded him that he must prevent the Germans getting such a weapon.’ Mayhew reached out and searched for the heat of the fire.

‘Huth is trying to piece together the charred remains but there is nothing there.’

‘Some of the Germans think the whole project is a complete waste of money. Others, including Huth and Springer, understand that if this fantastic experiment bore fruit it could mean military domination of the whole world. And the men, and the organization, in charge of such a project would become similarly important within the system.’ Mayhew rubbed his
hands briskly. It was a nervous mannerism and he smiled at Douglas, as if admitting to some secret anxiety that he could not speak of.

‘But if the papers are destroyed, will the army go through with the plan to help the King escape?’

Mayhew grabbed Douglas’s arm and held it in a painful grip.

‘We can be quite certain that there is a duplicate set of those papers, Superintendent Archer. Dr William Spode was far too careful to commit a life’s work to his briefcase, without taking some sort of precaution.’

‘You believe that?’

Mayhew looked over his shoulder, at the door through which Hesse had gone. ‘We both believe it, Archer,’ he said conspiratorially. ‘Just make sure you tell them so. If they give up hope of retrieving those papers, there’s little chance that we’ll ever see the King alive again.’

Hardly had Mayhew said it when the door opened again. The Major said, ‘The General will see you both now.’

The inner room had been rigorously scrubbed and cleaned, but the stained old floral wallpaper, warped floorboards and bare bulbs provided an atmosphere of stark poverty. In the centre of the room half-a-dozen hard chairs were arranged round a polished table. On its scarred top there were four scribbling pads, a jam-jar containing sharpened pencils and some rolled maps.

The Major who had brought them in resumed his seat at the table. With him there were two men in the uniform of infantry Captain, and a tall, elderly, white-haired man in a grey, striped civilian suit. His gold-rimmed spectacles and neat moustache went well with the stiff wing collar and gold tie-pin. Douglas recognized him as General-major Georg von Ruff
whose Front Line Intelligence Detachment had secured Portsmouth’s cranes and storage tanks before the Royal Navy’s demolition teams could destroy them. For this he had received the immediate award of the Knight’s Cross. He smoked a cigarette in an ivory holder and toyed with a cigarette case on the table in front of him.

Captain Hesse, still wearing his overcoat, was seated away from the others. ‘So the younger Spode is dead too?’ said the Feldgendarmerie Major. He was a middle-aged man, with horn-rimmed spectacles, and a habit of tapping the table top with the end of his pencil.

‘So I understand,’ said Mayhew. He stood erect as if in the dock of a law court. Everyone in the room seemed in awe of von Ruff. Everyone, that is, except Douglas Archer.

‘And your police officer followed Captain Hesse here?’

‘Yes, I followed him here,’ said Douglas, resenting the way in which his presence was being ignored.

‘I will come to you later,’ said the Feldgendarmerie Major.

Douglas stepped forward, picking up a chair by the backrest and swung it into position, to sit down on it uninvited. ‘Now you listen to me, Major,’ said Douglas quietly. ‘And you tell your General to listen too, since he is perhaps unable to speak for himself. I don’t intend to sit here while you discuss me. If you want my co-operation you’ll have to woo me, because I’m very difficult to please.’

The General turned his head stiffly and looked at Douglas without changing his blank expression. Then he lit a new cigarette from the stub of the previous one.

The Major tapped his pencil to get attention and
said, calmly, ‘You have the impertinent manner of the revolutionary. It will get you nowhere. Let me remind you of your position…’

Douglas reached across the table, far enough to touch the Major’s hand with his fingertip. The Major flinched. ‘No,’ said Douglas. ‘Let me remind
you
of
your
position. I am a policeman investigating a murder. I have reason to believe that Captain Hesse is implicated, and I followed him here to question him.’ He looked at the Germans one by one. ‘And I find him in circumstances that I can only describe as most unusual. If there is any explaining to be done – then you’ll do it.’

‘You’re playing a dangerous game, Superintendent,’ said the Major.

‘Not nearly so dangerous as the one you’re playing,’ said Douglas. He felt frightened and he realized that his voice sounded higher in pitch and was strangled by the nervous tightening of his vocal cords. ‘Do you really imagine that you’ll get any support from the German C-in-C Great Britain, or from Berlin, if I submit a report about young Spode’s death this afternoon?’

‘You’re not out of here yet,’ said the Major. The General narrowed his eyes, as if pained by the crude threat.

‘My car is equipped with radio telegraph,’ said Douglas. ‘I would not come into a notorious district like this, late at night, without taking precautions.’

‘What have you said?’

‘Nothing that cannot be unsaid,’ replied Douglas. There was a long silence. Douglas clenched his fists, and felt the sweat on his palms. Mayhew had remained silent throughout the exchange, ready to jump either way.

General von Ruff leaned forward, as if to share a
confidence. When he spoke his voice was blurred by the bronchial wheeze of the heavy smoker. ‘Can you help us recover Dr Spode’s calculations, Superintendent?’

‘I believe I can, General.’

‘We’ll need assurances,’ said the Major, tapping the pencil on the table before writing on the pad.

‘Of course,’ said Douglas.

‘Captain Hesse must not be included in your report to your authorities.’

‘He’ll go on record as a witness to Spode’s death. I can’t change that.’

The General raised his eyes slowly to where Mayhew stood, one hand in pocket and a fixed smile on his face. It was an artificial posture for such a man, and Douglas guessed that Colonel Mayhew was as frightened as he was.

‘I’ll need to know how you will dispose of His Majesty,’ said the General. His voice revealed a measure of veneration for the imprisoned monarch. ‘Our honour requires that his safety is assured.’

‘We’ll fly him out of one of the old disused airfields, sir,’ said Mayhew. ‘One of your officers is advising us on which one to choose.’

‘You’ll go too?’

‘I’ve had no orders so far, sir.’

It was the sort of answer that the General understood and thoroughly approved. He looked at Douglas in the hope that he might see some of the same willingness to take orders there but he did not see it. Douglas brought out a handkerchief and wiped his nose. The General looked away and blew a smoke ring. ‘There is nothing more,’ said the General. He dismissed all those present with a nod and got to his feet. The German officers jumped to attention, and stood rigid while their master said good night. Then
one of the Captains helped him into his overcoat. Douglas remained seated and the General did not glance in his direction as he left without speaking. Only when the Abwehr chief had gone did his staff unbend a little. The Major unclipped his collar and heaved a sigh of relief. He took no further interest in Douglas.